


Yesterday

by yenso



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, not beta read (for now), warning for one (1) single dirty thought that goes in passing like an oopsie woopsie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27434950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yenso/pseuds/yenso
Summary: Elsword is woken up by a dream, but he can't tell if it was truly a dream or a vision granted by the El at this point.
Relationships: Elsword/Chung Seiker, Knight Emperor/Comet Crusader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> can be read as a stand-alone, but this is an attachment to A Vast World and makes very subtle reference to it! can technically call this... vast world (1.5)

It’s dark,

“…!”

And he wakes up to a voice with a gasp and blown eyes.

There’s a gentle rocking underneath him that rhythmically shifts the ground in a familiar beat, synonymous to the melody of his breathing. One inhale has the faint scent of salt wafting about, head resting against a soft pillow and body enveloped in warmth. A slight groan of wood rings itself in unnatural volumes against the quiet when he awakens with a jolt, gasping a large intake of air with his hand over his heart. His shirt is crinkled, gripped tightly by a clenched hand that he does not remember doing when he first fell asleep.

“Elsword?” the voice comes back, but quieter.

He adjusts his eyes and sees blue hovering over him. Cerulean orbs. They’re wide, checking, and when he looks back, they suddenly inch closer into his periphery. Elsword reaches up, pushing the person’s head up and in turn, inching his head out of bed to get a better look at the top bunk.

“Did you need something?”

Chung shakes his head. “No, I think I should be asking you that. You were moving around a lot in your sleep.”

In his sleep...? It clicks. The dream returns to him, of white suits and smiles that made him shift from foot to foot, fully dressed in his armor as he stands at the mast of a ship alone. “I was? Sorry, go back to slee—“

“No,” the twin ceruleans narrow into an acute glare. He shakes his head and sits up, brushes stray hands of cream-colored, long hair out of his face, and tiredly rubs at his eyes, “I want you to talk to me.” Elsword shies away in some vain attempt to hide, only to be caught by a deadpan from Chung. An alabaster hand reaches down from above, a heaven-sent invitation to climb up.

“So let’s talk.”

Uh. Well. About that. Elsword instead shuts in on himself and wraps his blanket around his body, trying to think of a myriad of excuses. Random nightmare about cockroaches? Aisha blew him up? Rena got mad and began the next apocalypse? Definitely not weddings in Hamel and going abroad? “I-I was just worried about you,” he explains, a little too flustered, “really, Chung, just go back to sleep. We’re not arriving at Port Lurensia for another two days.”

Chung pauses. His glare leaves for a plastic smile and Elsword is quite positive he said the wrong things. So Chung is thinking of the choice words to destroy him upon consciousness rather than in dreams. The rocking of the ship is almost tempting to make him curl back into bed, but maybe it was just his innate nature to keep standing even when everything goes wrong. Perhaps he really should go back to sleep, let the sound of the ocean and the scent of the sea softly lull him. But unsurprisingly, the lack of urgent events, the knowledge of Chung’s tendencies to chase, keeps him waiting to be judged by his best friend.

“Elsword,” Chung starts, voice taking a dangerous drop as he emphasizes his hand again, “you don’t look great. We can talk.”

“I...” Elsword hesitates for a moment. He doesn’t want to bother Chung with his problems. When people know about his problems, they worry. It was much better to be quiet about it so that everyone else could focus on their own issues, wasn’t it? But when he looks up, sees how Chung remains unbudging and expectant of him, he finally settles and grabs his hand, hauling himself up on the top bunk. Elsword nestles himself on the other side of the bed, one leg pulled up to his chest and arm draped over on top, used as a cushion for his head. Chung fumbles for a lamp, eventually climbing over the rail to arch his body down, reach the nightstand, grab the lamp, and flick it to life in one swift motion. Shortly after, he makes himself comfortable, the hum of working heat and warm light mixing together with the bobbing of the room. The lamp finds itself placed between the two on the bed.

With colors of the hearth illuminating the space between them, Elsword takes a moment to take in Chung’s appearance (again). His eyes are drooping, slowly but surely, with gradual, extended blinks and Elsword himself wonders if he should keep insisting for Chung to go back to sleep instead. The short-sleeved shirt he’s wearing seems to be a size too large, tauntingly hanging off his shoulder and dipping down past the collarbone. And then his hair. Gods, Elria, his hair. It cascades in a manner akin to waterfalls down his figure, creating pools around him with a couple of strands straying from the wave, obviously from sleep. The lamplight only seems to enhance the sight of his porcelain skin. Which didn’t help at all.

They’re both silent. Elsword tries to figure out what to say, thoughts and feelings shifting from avoidance to frustration to resignation. He’d really rather not— why is he so stupid? He never should’ve had a dream in the first place because then Chung wouldn’t have woken up and wouldn’t be worried— there’s no way out of this, so it was better if Elsword simply be honest and come out with it.

“Elsword?” Chung calls his name softly, hesitantly outstretching fingertips with caution enough to wonder if he were reaching to steal Elsword off the wall of a museum.

A heavy sigh escapes him before he waves him off. Chung immediately retracts his hand back.

Elsword chews on his lip. It feels awkward having his best friend watch him with hawk eyes for whatever he’ll say. It wasn’t even the first time, but that stare of impending ‘no escape’ doom always wore him down in the end. He wears on his lower lip, pursed for a moment, then parts them and speaks.

“I have dreams—no, visions...? About the past,” he says, eyes downcast, hair illuminated flaxen gold from the lamplight, “explosions. Solace. The El shattering into pieces. The events... they’re all the same.”

Chung carefully readjusts his position to sit shoulder to shoulder with him on the cot, lifts up the covers to swing himself into the same sheets as the knight. He says nothing, only waits for Elsword to continue.

Elsword looks at him, looks at how he looks so earnest and true. Yet it comes with an added furrow in his brow that screamed concern, firmness in how he sets his jaw with uncertainty. He remembers vividly those dreams of Harnier before she became Lady El, the explosion that occurred on the Harmony Festival, the scattering of the shards, and how Elrios had come to be before El Search Party turned it around. But those pieces of the past were moments from centuries ago, in its truest form. Other dreams, especially the one of white suits...

Elsword intertwines his hands together and swallows thickly, “...and sometimes, I dream of you. And everyone else. In the future.”

The El-induced dreaming had once been of them all bloodied and possibly _gone_ , leaving the knight by himself to mourn and despair in a foreign realm. And though they had gotten past that, the visions never stopped, and so neither did his worries. He preferred the past, as the past were events that were already overcome, but the events of the future were different. Chung frowns, leans back, his head lightly thumping against the bed rest, and asks, “Like your nightmares?” with a gentleness beyond even a caress. Consequently, that kind of voice has an unbroken streak of causing Elsword’s chest to scrunch together.

Elsword shakes his head, scratches the back of his neck, avoids his gaze entirely. He grips the bedsheet tightly in the other fist.

“I don’t know,” he finally says, “the events are different each time.”

“Different...?” Chung murmurs, confusion evident.

Elsword’s head slumps further along his arm, exhaustion washing over him, “Like the yarn thing Aisha talked about.” He vaguely recalls the magician’s tangent. How it was more like peering into one strand out of many; like the old tale of a ball of yarn making constant different paths and possibilities. This was stuff Aisha liked to dig her heels deep into, so if anything Elsword was only regurgitating what she says about this, but the ball of yarn was like the whole universe and each thread woven in was like a different possibility in that same universe or whatever.

“Y-Yeah, I remember,” the guardian responds quickly with a stutter, slightly red at the cheeks and nodding, “What happened?”

Elsword doesn’t notice the flush on the other’s face. He inhales. Exhales. Slumps forward, eyes looking far past the wooden walls of the cabin, beyond the ship, towards the stretching sea, out for a place beyond the night sky as if the sky held the answer to his dreams. Maybe it did— the sky was infinite and vast; it was full of possibilities and new adventures. But these dreams were very real in his sleep, hardly a fantasy but rather movie clips rolling.

“I was walking along Port Pluone alone,” soft melancholy drips as he speaks, the arduous descent of his eyelids finally drawing to the conclusion that sealed his eyes shut, “and there was this big party in Hamel.”

He takes himself back to that dream. Or maybe it was a vision. Port Pluone— the docking area that Hamel owns. Where most of the imports come in from Rurensia, and a popular area in Hamel that flourished with trade from all over Elrios. Balloons— bright ones— climbed into the air as the sky opened up, scattering confetti all over.

“You were calling my name. When I turned around, you were standing far away in this really white suit and tie next to...” he pauses, straining his mind to remember.

Chung in a white suit, next to someone. He could be standing next to just about anybody, but there was definitely some kind of somebody. Certainly wasn’t Sir Helputt, he was smiling too much for it to be someone he disliked. But he doesn’t know if it was maybe an El Search Party member or some unknown person they’ve yet to meet. Just that they looked happy, and Elsword smiled back despite the painful, unfamiliar ache in his chest.

Elsword shakes his head with a groan. “...I don’t remember, but your arm was around them and it looked like some kind of party and you and the other person both had bouquets of flowers. You looked happy—“

“It was my wedding?” Chung cuts in.

Elsword falls silent, crestfallen, his visage contorts and his eyes force themselves further shut with a flash of hurt that he pulls away from sight as soon as it’s felt. Chung’s frown grows deep, but unseen with the knight preoccupied with attempting to conceal his own grimace.

“Yeah, I guess,” his reply is forlorn and reluctance carries his tone, but Elsword continues regardless, “you told me to enjoy my trip and somehow, I knew. Knew that you were going to stay in Hamel with that person.”

He tries to think of brighter things, like the present. Chung’s decision was to tag along with him, wasn’t it? So why should he let a dream bother him so much? Unless it wasn’t a dream. Unless the El gave it to him as a warning vision of the future. Wait. No, he shouldn’t think like that, that’s making his chest ache. He squeezes his eyes more firmly shut as if doing so would just will away his feelings, but now he simply can’t help but wonder about the guardian’s choice. And, well, said person is sitting in front of him.

“Chung,”

Cerulean eyes flicker over. Elsword’s eyes remained shut, his head turned away from the guardian. May as well ask it now than avoid it.

“Did you want to stay in Hamel? I know there's important people to you still there.”

Elsword knew that Hamel was his home. He had debated for a week between going with crossing over to Rurensia once more on his lonesome or playing the selfish hand and asking the one he admired and even adored to leave with him. To depart from his home, his father, his safe haven, to be with his reckless best friend and leader whom he had stuck with during a time of war. Yet still, Chung agreed with a smile and red cheeks. But maybe he was reconsidering now. Better to turn back now than later, right?

The silence is harsh. Elsword unconsciously steels himself for rejection, starts preparing his apologies for his recklessness and incapabilities, but it all comes to a halt when he feels cool fingers just on the curve of his jaw. They leave trails that he can only follow, lifting his head up and lashes fluttering to return his sight again with surprise. Elsword follows the motion Chung’s fingers make, gliding across his jawline to set him upright again before sliding down to just below his chin, resting there.

“Are you wondering if you’ve bothered me again?” Chung softly asks, eyes dropping lower from the knight’s eyes, lingering, before quickly shifting back up.

“Yeah,” Elsword admits to it easily, leaning further into the touch, “I guess I am."

The ship creaks quietly, yet it echoes in their cabin in the midst of silence. Waves break themselves apart against the vessel’s sides, moonlight seeping through the circular window in the center of the wall.

“Elsword,” Chung calls, quietly, gently. The knight looks up and he’s glass in the guardian’s hands. A flash of vulnerability, the slightest tremble in his fingers, an unspoken plea in his paw-printed irises. Elsword goes still. Chung spreads his arms, scoots closer carefully, as if he knew how fragile glass could be, and draws the redhead in with hands curling around to his back, “I’ve thought this through. I want to see everything Elrios has to offer before I settle back home. With you.”

(Elsword fights back the idealistic thoughts. He forces down the fantasy of that shadowy figure being replaced by him, him being the one Chung has his arm around with the bells chiming behind them and hope alight in those clear blue eyes, and the smiles and laughter they would share while aligning their matching ring fingers together.)

Elsword sighs. His knees fall slack like deadweight against the mattress, arms slowly slipping out and loosely encircling around Chung. Head falling against the crook of his neck, Elsword slumps against the other so seamlessly it could have been mistaken for a drowsiness spell if one hadn’t looked. And maybe it could have been, Chung being solid like a grounded rock and the familiar yet unfamiliar feeling of warmth trickling through his veins.

“It bothered me in a weird way,” the knight says after a moment. His grip tightens on Chung’s shirt as he nestles himself further in, “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a really bad stomachache, even though El showed me much worse things in the past.”

“Like what?”

Elsword tenses up again. He feels Chung tighten his hold a little more, patting the knight’s back softly and hooking his chin over his shoulder.

“I saw the Nasod-Human war,” Elsword starts, already hearing the explosions and the grinding of steel and the dying vibrations, “and everything that happened between Solace and Harnier. Then there was the El explosion five hundred years ago and that vision I had of everyone badly injured in the demon realm.”

“It didn’t turn out the way you thought though, didn’t it?” Chung’s fingers are therapeutic as they run through Elsword’s hair, “We all came out just fine in the end.”

“Hm,” Elsword makes a soft noise, shifting slightly. The lantern tilts over just a fraction, shifting the illumination between them askew, “you’re right. I can’t even tell the difference between a dream and a vision anymore.”

“Why is that?”

There’s a barely felt shift on the back of his neck down. Elsword frowns. “I don’t know. It’s like being in a movie. A future where the El Search Party almost died, a future where I boarded this ship by myself. It’s all so clear and vivid, and like I’m a part of it sometimes too, that it just feels like part of the future.”

“Like you’re actually in the scene?”

“Yeah. Dreams are like that too, aren’t they?”

He remembers Solace showing him memories, and how it felt watching everything rush by as if he were a ghost, the heart-wrenched cries for Harnier. And how he walked between the fallen bodies of his beloved friends and team members in the abyss of Henir, crying out their names and defeated as a cubic serpent widened its fangs before him.

“You can see yourself in dreams sometimes,” Chung says.

“That’s true,” Elsword’s head lolls to the side, “it’s scary how any one of these could come true.”

“But they could also be different from what you think, or not come true at all,” Chung replies, “El Search Party has always been known to do impossible things. We might even find a way around it after it happens. You’re technically looking at a possibility if it’s the future. Nothing in the future is certain.”

“Sounds like something Add would say,” Elsword snorts. He can already see Add glaring at him and preparing some sort of rude comment that was also well-intentioned at the same time, leaving him confused.

“Hey, maybe it was someone else’s wedding,” Chung shrugs, “Aisha probably would get married in Hamel. It’s a beautiful city for weddings, after all.”

Elsword blanches at that but knows he isn’t wrong. Of the years he’s known Aisha, known her antics and her expectations, it was easy to realize when she was making a direct comparison to her ideal fantasy against the reality she was nit-picking against, “Aisha? Really?”

“Maybe I just caught the bouquet,” Chung teases, “and I was telling you good luck on your trip because you had to run away from Aisha after ruining her wedding somehow.”

“I wouldn’t ruin her wedding!” Elsword finally retorts, unable to hold back the irritation at the thought that he would be so unreliable, he can’t even sit still for a friend’s wedding. Elsword grumbles and pulls himself away from the guardian, but it is playful and he much prefers the pitter patters of his heart than the glum meekness resulted from his overthinking.

“I think you would! Clearly, I had to stay behind for damage control,” Chung snickers and smiles mirthfully. Elsword makes an exaggerated scoff, shoving Chung down hard enough to send him laying on his back, and leans against the wall with crisscrossed legs and a soft chuckle.

Elria, he was perfect.

Elsword casts a sideways glance at him. Chung places a hand on his shoulder, only a little apologetic but he puts on his best smile.

“Here, lie down with me.”

Elsword’s eyes widen, focus slowly turning towards his friend. He doesn’t know why the pattering evolves into jackhammers, doesn’t know why he feels so surprised at the idea of laying down in one bed together, but Chung merely pats the bed space next to him. El, he was so strong for maintaining his composure. If only he could be a mere fragment of what Chung was.

“You said you have these a lot, right? You can talk to me about it.” He smiles.

Elsword gawks, initially. Then he gives a small shrug and lightly smacks Chung on the hip, “I’m alright. Thanks— _hey_!” 

Moving closer to the edge of the mattress, Chung kicks Elsword’s leg as acknowledgement and Elsword shoves him a second time as retaliation, but he smiles with him as he makes himself comfortable next to Chung. They lie on their backs together, shoulders pressed close, staring up at the ship’s ceiling in an amicable stillness that is gently rocked by the ocean rhythm. Elsword thinks if the story just ended here, he would be alright with that. It would be peaceful, and he was with someone he loved. Err, cherished.

(He’s still unsure of how his sister would feel if he admitted his feelings were for another man.)

“Hey, Elsword,” Chung murmurs, slightly leaning his head towards the knight with eyes still gazing above, “you can sleep with me tonight if it helps you.”

Elsword has to process it for a moment. He thinks about the closed eyes, sweet dreams that Chung surely meant, but as soon as his head takes a turn towards unexpected perversion filled with heavy sighs and naked bodies pressed together, he shoves it as far back into his brain as he thinks he can by favoring the wood on the walls. Chung glances at him curiously, expectant of an answer, and Elsword is left frantically trying to pick up his purest pieces and drags his sights away from the wall earlier than he had hoped.

“I—I don’t mind,” a brief stutter sends the rest of Elsword’s words following up, “we’ve shared a tent before, back in the war. But I’m worried it might be cramped for you.”

“I’ve been through worse,” Chung says instead with a small laugh, turning his body fully towards Elsword, “you shouldn’t worry about these sorts.”

A paltry excuse is what it really was, but Elsword does the same; he plays along, even. He faces the guardian as his brows crash down on his eyes and his lips arc into a frown as he retaliates with, “What’s wrong with worrying?!”

Chung laughs a little harder. “Nothing, you’re just getting concerned over the wrong things.”

Elsword rolls his eyes, lowers his head with a groan, softly hitting Chung’s shoulder with his fist before his shoulders shake a little and they’re laughing together the second after. Elsword un-balls his fist, leaving his hand resting on the guardian’s shoulder.

“Hurry up and go to sleep,” Chung finally manages after their laughter settles into scattered chuckles, “you want to be first to the dining hall, don’t you?”

“Bacon and sausages are good,” Elsword responds immediately, gleam in his eye, “I’m so tired of jerky after how much Raven made us eat them.” He rolls over on his stomach, his upper body hanging off of Chung’s with his elbows propped on him, “And croissant. Hamel food is amazing.”

“Yes, yes,” Chung lazily smiles, wraps his arms around Elsword, and pulls him back. Elbows slipping, he quickly succumbs, red going under and head landing on his chest, “you like food. I know. So go to sleep.”

Huh? What was this? It was Chung’s chest, obviously, but were they really going to sleep in this position? Was his best friend okay with that? Surely he was if he was the one that initiated, right? Settling for that, Elsword stares towards the wall with wide eyes, then smiles and closes them, curling up closer to Chung with a relieved exhale, “Okay. You get some rest too. Good night.”

“Good night,” Chung hums back.

He listens to the rise and fall of Chung’s breaths, aligning his own with them until they match a languid rhythm that would, sure enough, be accompanied by those soft puffs of air that could barely be called snoring from the guardian. Entangling his legs with Chung’s, he finds he likes these sorts of positions if its with the guardian in particular and wordlessly prays it doesn’t bother him. Chung would say something if it bothered him, surely. And he didn’t. Rather, he feels small circles being traced against the small of his back instead.

Elsword smiles a little, eyes closed as he tilts his body towards Chung until he’s pressed against his side, and lets his dreams overtake him once more.

This time, he’s the one Chung has his arm around at that port in Hamel, with the bells singing happy ending overhead and their hands outstretched to view their matching rings in the sun. And this time, he hopes this is a vision from the El.


End file.
